If steelheading is not Great Lakes freshwater hatchery drones but instead native pacific northwest nomadic rainbows the size of your leg with several thousand sea miles behind them; or if stripers are not jigged, trolled or chunked meat fish but ghostly 40" hunters on the flats at noon out on Monomoy on a July day with no one in sight for miles, or... you get the point.

Acklins is that for the bonefisher, in a word - pure. Not convenient per se, not posh nor cozy and I don't think there is a golf course on the entire archipelago in fact fresh drinking water was a new development the year I organized the first forum expedition there by a mere couple of months.

It's said that there are nearly 1000 square miles of flats, and most accessible by car. It's been hard for us to explore beyond the ridiculous flats we already know but there are some that see only our footsteps year after year and we leave with a sense of an experience all our own.

We have befriended the people of the island and that has become one of the greatest joys of the trip.

We are much less guests or visitors here than in other places, instead we are people with a passion for a beautiful and pure place in some ways stronger than those who see it everyday.

Therefore it's not an exploitation, but a celebration that sets it apart from the typical fishing venue.

I've fished other islands in the Bahamas and I can't say that Acklins is all that different.

The main draw is that this will be year 4 now and we know the drill at this point. We can be off the plane and into fish within a half hour of the wheels touching down. That wasn't the case the first year and took at least two trips before we had it figured out.

As Juro said, the people are fantastic, and they know us pretty well at this point. We know from start to finish where our meals are coming from, when to run errands to maximize our fishing time (as you can imagine it's not 9 to 5 out there) and who to contact when we hit those little snags that are bound to happen on trips.

It has gotten more crowded in the last year or so but right now it still fits all our needs. I'm sure the time will come to branch out and try one of a number of other areas on our radar but for now and the near future it matches up with the type of trip that I enjoy.

A friend and I are heading back to Acklins for the second time; will be fishing with guide Fedel, at the north end of the island. Going the first week of April.
It is a pretty place, quite an experience, and we even caught some fish.
I'd be interested in trying it as a DIY trip sometime too, but I sure cannot spot the bones like a guide can. Practice makes perfect, and I don't get to practice enough.
GMflyfish